When immune induction is conducted by using a peptide as an antigen, the peptide may be administered together with an adjuvant, which serves as an effective means for promoting an immune response. In this case, the adjuvant is an oil component such as liquid paraffin, and hence the peptide and the adjuvant are mixed with water and are emulsified before their administration.
As a technology for preparing such emulsion, there has been disclosed a method and a connector dedicated to the method. Specifically, in this method, a mixture of an oil adjuvant serving as an oil component and a peptide solution is agitated by causing the mixture to repeatedly move between syringes via the connector having a small diameter (refer to Patent Document 1).
However, generally, the preparation of the emulsion is manually conducted, and hence it is complicated and a burden is imposed on those who prepare the emulsion.
Therefore, for automation of the preparation of the emulsion, there has been proposed a pumping apparatus. Specifically, this apparatus performs pumping, by which the above-mentioned mixture is caused to move from one syringe through a connector into another syringe (reciprocating movement of syringe plungers). This apparatus includes: fixing tables for detachably fixing the syringes coupled to each other through the connector; and cooperating mechanisms for causing the syringe plungers of the syringes to reciprocatingly move in the same direction (refer to Patent Document 1). Patent Document 1: WO 2007/083763